Fieldbus Foundation Expands Safety Test Sites

The Fieldbus Foundation HAS announced that its FOUNDATION for Safety Instrumented Functions (SIF) demonstration project has been expanded to include multiple end user locations around the world. Plans now call for field demonstrations of FOUNDATION for SIF Functions at Shell Global Solutions (Holland), Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia), BP (Germany), and Chevron (USA).

No changes were required to the existing FOUNDATION protocol to add the SIF protocol extensions. The Fieldbus Foundation developed specifications for safety instrumented functions in cooperation with some of the world's leading automation end users, controls manufacturers, and safety experts. And the field demonstrations will promote adoption of FOUNDATION SIF technology in the process industries.

The Fieldbus Foundation's Director of Technology Development, David Glanzer, said, "Users are realizing significant operating benefits in their non-safety systems through their use of the technology. By extending FOUNDATION technology into Safety Instrumented Functions, they see the opportunity for the additional economic benefits of its native predictive diagnostics."

The Fieldbus Foundation SIF protocol meets the requirements of the IEC 61508 standard for functional safety of electrical, electronic and programmable electronic safety-related systems, up to, and including, Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 3. In addition, end users can build systems per the IEC 61511 standard covering SIF functional safety in the process industries (IEC 61511 is available as the ANSI/ISA-84.00.01-2004 standard).